Typekit – Typedeck

Nice site: Cast Iron Design Company

Cast Iron Design Company has not forgotten the reason we designers got all excited about the prospect of web fonts in the first place: the ability to use real fonts for typographic design instead of replacing text with images…

I don’t often feature websites on here. I guess the whole web font “revolution” of the last two years has sent designers into a flurry of experimentation and the results are often a little underwhelming.

People like Jason Santa Maria and Trent Walton have been nudging us in the right direction, showing us the power that this culmination of typographic awareness, innovation and browser support holds. As we all know, with great power comes great responsibility, and in exploring this new frontier, best practices have been something of a grey area.

Continue reading “Nice site: Cast Iron Design Company”

Web Typography for the Lonely

Web Typography for the Lonely is an ongoing collection of experiments and writings on, you guessed it, web type. Each entry features a demo and write-up explaining how the result was achieved.

Do you find your relationship with typography more fulfilling than any other? Do you remember complex lines of Javascript off by heart but forget your best friend’s birthday? Do you feel that CSS3 just may be your soul mate?

If you answered yes to any of these questions the chances are you may end up lonely… but don’t despair, there’s a website for you: WebTypographyfortheLonely.com

Web Typography for the Lonely is an ongoing collection of experiments and writings on web typography and the possibilities of standards-based web design. It aims to inspire the web community by pushing the boundaries of what is both possible and practical in web standards in a manner that is compelling and exciting to the visually-minded creative.

Created and maintained by Baltimore based designer Chris Clark, each entry features a demo and write-up explaining how the result was achieved. Check it out!

Wish list: Explorations in Typography / Mastering the Art of Fine Typesetting

This beautiful typographic reference book with its yellow gilded edges looks like an absolute must-have.

With Explorations in Typography Carolina de Bartolo guides the reader through 24 chapters each exploring different typesetting techniques. Read Patrick Barber’s review for a more thorough account of what to expect from the book.

Explorations in Typography by Carolina de Bartolo

Carolina took two years to complete the book, but what makes it all the more impressive is that this San Francisco based lecturer went the DIY route and published it herself. After finding that the idea was a hard sell for traditional publishers, she had to figure things out as she went along and eventually founded her own publishing company.

Explorations in Typography’s website is certainly worth a visit too. Using a range of web fonts from Typekit, the home page offers an interactive experience in exploring typesetting techniques, each with annotations explaining the merits of the resulting layout.

Better web typography with Javascript

Lettering.js is an innovative jQuery plugin that allows designers to take tweaking of web type to the next level. Combine Lettering.js with the Kern.js bookmarklet and some really interesting things become possible…

Here are two articles from Typekit, complete with examples to show you how it’s done: